Feral
by Radioheaded
Summary: Castiel Novak moves to a cottage on the coast, left to him by a relative he's never known. But there's more than meets the eye when it comes to this place, and its secret, when revealed, might not leave much of Castiel behind Very, very veeeery AU. Cas is human; Dean isn't.
1. Chapter 1

Rolling dunes, a finger-painted sky that glows as the sun sets. The soft lapping of a lake fed into an ocean a stone's-throw away, a cottage near its shore. It's picture-book perfect, but the glazed eyes that flicker past it all remain unimpressed. Castiel sits in his car, the motor still grunting, having only just been shut off, and stares at the small house before him.

_I want to leave you with something. I want to give you an anchor._

The man shakes his head, lip curling up at the thought, the voice of the dead that curls through his mind in the toast-dry tones of his lawyer as he read the last wishes of a relative who'd only bothered with Castiel after his death. His grip on the steering wheel tightens before he lets go entirely, slinging the duffel bag from the passenger seat over his arm as he gets out of the car, legs stiff. The air is heavy with salt, wet with humidity. It settles over him, reaching past his collar to stroke its fingers over his throat, down his shoulders to moisten the skin there so his shirt sticks, plastered to his lower back and chest.

The glass-surface lake is a calming shush-shush that flows with the beat of his too-calm heart, a muscle eased by the miracle bonds of chemicals he'd swallowed down at a rest stop an hour or so ago; lithium, Vicodin. They make it easier. And yet the placidity of the water sends a hot-slick bolt of anger through him, sliding like a snake along the puzzle-piece notches of his spine. His fingers reach for the ground and he comes back with a handful of rocks, jagged, smooth, sand a buffer between the contrasting surfaces. The peace of the water is broken and his lips curve up, a mirthless little smirk that twists already angular features, a sharp jaw and nose, generous lips thinning, bloodless as they're pressed together. Empty-handed, he turns toward the house.

The lock grants access easily, though the hinges creak a bit. The air inside is stale; it's been at least a week, if not more, since the grounds have been touched, neatened so nature's wild streak doesn't worm its way past the gates of civilization. The inside is like any other coastal vacation home, light colors and high ceilings, an openness that's meant to instill vacation, maybe. Escape. The windows are large and the watery-tipped fingers of dusk are straggling through, intense pools of dying light gathering on the counter and floor. His keys are left on the table, sprawled across a letter with his name, in neat, block handwriting. His bag is dropped into an over-stuffed armchair facing a television as old as he is, probably.

The house is neat. Everything is in its predictable right place, cups and plates and bowls in the cupboards above the stove, lines in a closet near the small bathroom. It's evidence of nothing, a home that _isn't, _a glorified hotel. But there's no phone and no disruption, neighbors stopping by for stifling chit-chat, concerned looks that trail him everywhere he goes, people staring like he's blind, like he can't look right back and glean the pity shining in the star-scattering of their irises. So he tours the little cottage, acquaints himself with it and ends up back in the living room, where the contents of his bag wait for him. He pulls a bottle of Jack Daniels, the first of three he brought, and a small bag that carries something he hasn't done in years. It's fresh, a faintly musky smell that sticks to his fingers as he picks it apart and rolls it in the thin paper he'd bought at a truck stop on the way up. The teenager had smirked at him.

Doesn't matter now. He raises the slightly lumpy joint to his mouth and lights it, breathing in the heady smoke wastes no time in its conquest of his mind. It eases in, helped by the first swig of whiskey that burns hot in his throat. The fire is a promise of misery and retching tomorrow, but the effects will be sweet enough tonight. He stands, shucking off his light jacket with the blunt between his teeth. He sucks in too long and fights the urge to cough, lungs fighting to be rid of the sticky smoke. It catches on his shirtsleeves, but a few insistent wrenches and the jacket is abandoned, crumpling onto the couch in a forgotten ball. His hand grasps the cool metal of the door when the letter on the end table catches his attention again, a glance down that leaves him curious. Wondering. It's thick between his fingers, like old-time parchment paper. He steps outside, into cooling air that doesn't feel so much like a slow drown anymore, and sits on a painted-white bench he hadn't noticed before. It creaks, but holds him well enough. Another mouthful of whiskey, another wince at the taste and it's time to read the letter. The last drag of weed curls from his mouth, arching this way and that as it disperses into the night sky; he slits the seal of the envelope with his index finger and squints at the words, trying to bring them into focus.

_Castiel._

_I know you don't really know me. I know you probably don't want to. You wouldn't have understood the reasons, and I can't even tell you now, really. You'll know why soon enough. But know that I thought only of your safety, that our distance was never something I wanted. After your father died, I—I should have been there. But I was too afraid to leave, too afraid something would happen. And I can't let it. But I've watched you, Castiel. I know the man you've grown into. And I trust you with a task, a secret no one should be responsible for. You will be an unsung hero, Castiel. For that I apologize. But it has to be done. So I'll leave you with a warning: be very, very careful. Do not relax here, and __do not go in the lake._

_Stay safe, Castiel._

_David Novak_

A chill skitters up Castiel's spine, cutting through his world gone soft and hazy. He looks up from the paper that's now shaking, the pulse in his fingers sped up, fueled by adrenaline. Unease is thick in his blood, and he can't help but wonder if the night is staring back into him. _Just the letter,_ he assures himself. _Just a recluse uncle fucking with you. Relax._

If he goes back inside hastily, there's no one there to judge him. Just a faint splash he doesn't hear over the pound of his heart in his ears, a fear he pins on the weed he hasn't smoked in years. He can laugh at himself when he's back inside, when the safety of walls are around him, doing their job, protecting him from the long-legged beasties of his nightmares. The ones he's had more of lately. The ones in slow motion he can't tear his eyes away from. The ones where—

_No. Not going there._

Distraction. Distraction is what he needs and the shelf behind his uncle's television is full of them. Comedy, romance, action. He chooses a movie at random and puts it in the dvd player, technology at odds with the rest of the place, a relic belonging more to the fifties than the twenty-first century. He sags back into the velvet of the couch, bringing the bottle of Jack up for another swallow, one that doesn't taste like anything anymore. It slides him away, fanning him out like dust blowing in the wind so he isn't thinking about anything, not the ominous note, not the light fading from eyes, closing slowly, even as he begged them not to.

He slips into dreams and the movie continues, bathing him in the pale reflection of the tv's glow, the idle chatter and witty lines white noise against his dead-to-the-world ears. A press of lips on his forehead and he forgets the isolated house he's inherited, forgets the new lines in his forehead and slips away into the nothing embrace of a man that whispers his name soft as steam rising from a morning cup of coffee. _Castiel._

Fingers on his cheeks, a bumpy path halted by the overgrowth of stubble dotting the skin there and on his jaw. Spirals and slinking lines are drawn into his skin, moving down his neck to a suddenly bare chest where nails scratch just right, one foot on dry-throated pleasure, the other resting on red-tipped pain. Castiel throws his head back, mouth open, gasping at the tide of ecstasy he's lost in. The drag of a mouth over his abdomen, down his sides catches his cells, lighting them like fireworks to rain sparks down. The colors burst behind his eyes and the sensations expand until he can't tell where he starts and his love stops. If there's a separation at all.

Only, he knows there is. He knows if he opens his eyes and stares into the amber waiting for him, the long lashes that girls were always jealous of (the fine hair he ran his pinky through while the other was sleeping) that this will end and he will wake and find himself alone again.

"It's been over a year," he hears, a frown pressed to his hip before pulling back to let teeth mark a half-moon there. "You don't have to be alone."

"Finn."

"I know." A kiss to quiet him, mouths entwining, opening like a flower drenched in the morning's dew. They move honey slow, patient and comfortable in the knowledge of one another's bodies. Castiel's hands come to life and he crushes Finn to him, but the echo between their chests is that of his own heart, the muscle that determines him to be alive, the same flesh that deems his love dead. Finn's hips jerk up, trapping the heat of his sex so it fills and he tenses, laying his head on the other man's shoulder. They stutter out a pattern, hitching and pressing until the pulsing rise of completion ripples in him and he can't help but draw the heavy curtain of his eyelids back. Amber, too bright, looks back and he's hanging in the stars, drunk with the beauty he knows he won't ever get to see again.

Finn smiles.

Castiel opens his eyes for real to find the bleak crack of dawn staring back at him. He's still half drunk, reeling with nausea and the too-real touch of a man who is long gone. The smell of semen jolts his already careening stomach and he stumbles to the bathroom, thankful he can even remember the location. His wretches are liquid at best; the last thing he ate he can't remember and it isn't coming up now. Minutes pass and his head remains in the bowl, salty shame and anger leaking from his eyes, splashing silently into the cold water too close to his face for comfort. He breathes a little easier after that, gets up and pulls his pants and boxers off, grimacing at the hardening residue left behind. When he climbs into a bed that isn't his in a town he barely knows and drops off into fitful sleep, at the back of his mind he can't help but wonder if it would be better if he didn't wake up at all.

Listless sleep rolls its covers back around noon. Castiel treks red-eyed into the shower and turns it up as hot as it will go, pale skin pink and stinging when he gets out, the blood at the surface, his body one pulse that beats hardest in his head. He needs coffee. And something solid so the coiled ball of his stomach can unfurl, if just a little bit. His duffle is where it was last night, the television still on, the main menu of the dvd playing softly over and over again. He pulls out pants and a shirt and hopes they match, dresses looking out the window.

And that's when he sees it. Or, him, really. Because there's someone in the water, and he's looking at Castiel.

_The house,_ he corrects. There's no way anyone could see that far—and the house is shaded. No. The person must just be checking to see if he'll be caught.

He's out the door before he knows what he's doing.

"Hey!" He winces at the volume of his own voice, the fever pitch his headache takes, so much so that he has to bend forward for a moment, trying to keep the bile in his stomach. When he looks up, he calls out again, voice lower.

"Hey," he tries again, his steps a little too fast but he's already got a good momentum.  
"What are you doing in—"

He's staring at an empty lake. There's nothing in the water, not even a ripple.

"How did you..." The area is open; no immediate woods or trees—nothing that a person could get to in the time it took Castiel to get from the house to the lake. He cards his fingers through his still-wet hair, the droplets snaking down his wrist, dripping down his neck freely.

"I'm hungover." One step back, two. "I'm really, really hungover and I'm going to get something greasy and disgusting to eat now." The lake doesn't answer when he turns back toward the house, going in only for his keys. He drives away, the warning from the letter loud in his ears.

_Don't go in the lake._

The Bay View diner is worn. The booths are a muted red, faded from years of sitting in the sun. The counters wear the mark of years gone by, millions of elbows resting in the same places, subtle grooves that are evident from the corner where Castiel sits, looking at a menu he's seen in countless other roadside restaurants. But the coffe is good and the smell is of sweet pancakes and smoky grease. His mouth waters and he calls the waitress over, a woman who probably talks to everyone like they're her kids, though she doesn't look any older than he. He'd raised his eyebrow at the 'honey,' she'd given him upon entering, but her smile was genuine, though there was something else there, a flicker of emotion too quick for him to catch, even if he cared to.

She brings him coffee with his menu and he reads her name tag. Sharon. After a few minutes of staring blankly at the same spot on the plasticized menu, rubbing at a boiled spot where it had been too close to a burner, or maybe a lighter, she comes back and orders.

"Western omelet, wheat toast, please." His voice is coffee-grinder low, a gravel that sounds like a cigarette bender with a laryngitis chaser. Sharon notices, glancing at the coffee he's added milk to.

"You want some tea with honey instead?"

"I'm alright," he says, and looks up, a wan smile stretching his mouth. She's pretty, dark hair and light eyes, straight features. But what keeps him staring that beat too long is the concern pulling her eyebrows down, the way her eyes tick back and forth between his, looking. Trying to gauge something.

You don't look at a total stranger this way.

He orders an omelet, toast (almost burnt, please,) and more coffee, words a little cold to discourage whatever contact she's trying to initiate, searching his face for a way in, an open window to crawl through.

"I," She comes back to refill his coffee, wipes thin-fingered hands on her apron and twists a lock of dark hair behind her ear. His expression is guarded, a plainy impatient _what?_ pasted to his forehead, but she continues, undeterred. "Are you related to Mr. Novak?"

_I _am _Mr. Novak,_ he wants to say, though instead a drop of ice falls from his lips in the form of a stiff 'Yes.'

"Oh." She takes a step back, dark eyes widening almost imperceptibly before her facade smooths back over. "Sorry for your loss." And then she's turning on her heel, ponytail curving up with the momentum, narrow back retreating toward the kitchen. His hands attract his attention then, the rough-bitten down cuticles that keep his thoughts away from the burn of his cheeks. She was young. Mid-twenties, maybe.

When his food comes, the ball of embarrassment that sits like a rock in his stomach drops lower. She offers a half-hearted smile and sets down a plate laden with food, far more than the three-egg omelet he'd ordered.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles between lips that have forgotten how to hold polite conversation, the formation of words that aren't barbed with wire and daggers.

"Don't be." But the tense line of her shoulders relax despite herself. She leaves him to eat and he takes a bite, knowing she's still watching. It smells good enough, but the first bite that passes his lips is ash and oil on a rain-slicked road. It's been a year since anything's tasted good, and obviously this meal will be no different. If he stops thinking of it, if he lets his mind drift, the process becomes mechanical and he can almost overlook the bitterness that coats his tongue like a too-warm blanket.

The coffee, though. It hasn't lost his taste and he drinks deep, sighing in contentment at the rich darkness of it, the milk just creamy enough to keep it from bitterness. His fingers trace the rim of the cup when he's emptied it, scooting out of the way when the waitress (_Robin,_ her name tag reads, the pin slightly crooked on her shirt) refills it and he hovers over it a moment, allowing the fragrant steam to rise over his cheeke like the lightest of kisses, lips barely parted.

"Here's your check," Robin whispers, sliding a thin piece of paper across the table. Her nails are bitten-down, red at the cuticle where slivers of old polish remain. He looks down at his plate. His eggs have gone cold.

He stops only once on the way back to the house, at a small grocery store where he buys enough to get him through the next week or so. Time spent in cigarettes and a cloud of thought-obscuring weed residue, whiskey a constant hum at the back of his throat. He won't overdue it again, though, stomach twisting and writhing like a snake inside, a fever pitch of guilt and disgust boiling in his blood, making him want to scrub and tear at his skin until it's clean, until it doesn't feel like he's splitting at the seams. The older man behind the register looks at him a beat too long when he hands over the cash and tells him to take care. Castiel gives a tight smile, the only kind his mouth remembers, and leaves.

Castiel loved to sleep in the sun. His mother would find him outside sometimes, curled up on a blanket, a wash of lemon light resting on his eyelashes, elongating the shadows like neat rows of parallel lines against his cheeks. The drive home is one of honey-dripped drowsiness, a thick and lazy feeling that has him blinking in an effort to keep awake. His window is down and the air is hot, plucking at the hair on his arms, skirting over the beads of sweat that form on the back of his neck.  
The house looms, finally, and he's distracted, thinks only of delving into cool sheets and letting the afternoon slip by. The groceries are heavy, but taking two trips is out of the question, so his arms are loaded as he turns to go into the house, kicking the car door shut as he eases of of it backwards.

"Hey!"

He drops the groceries at the sound of a voice from behind. It's abrupt, a bell tolling on the quietest of days and just as clear, melodious in a way he notices for a split second, though his attention is quickly called to the gallon of milk that all but explodes as it hits the ground, splattering his pants and shoes. And then, before he can look up, the world explodes into a starburst constellation of white-hot pain, colors flashing in front of his eyes. He sinks to his knees, a sudden thud he doesn't feel, before the thread of consciousness unravels completely and he's cast away, the world black around him.


	2. Chapter 2

There's sand in his mouth. It's the first thing Castiel notices when the world bleeds black in soft streams, each one easing a little pain in. The rocks under his cheek, a pounding in his head that's like glass being spiked through the walls of his scull—and in his hand, a muted pulse of synapses overtaxed with what feels like the throb of a burn gone infected.

"Fuck," he mutters, sand rough between his teeth, clinging to the moisture of his mouth as he tries to spit it out. He pushes himself up and almost falls back down, one arm crumpling beneath his weight and a vice

With one rubber-band arm, he wrestles his way up, breaths tight and fast. His hand shakes when he brings it to his face, presses it close so blurred eyes can see what's happened, why the limb feels like it's been through a meat grinder. And at first, everything looks ordinary; smooth skin, the upside-down V scar he'd gotten when his childhood cat decided it had had enough play, the light blush of hair at his wrist. But then—there. Two small holes, a few centimeters apart, edges angry and loud, shriveled slightly like a flower in a vase left without water. The cuts don't make sense. They're too even, too round and they hurt too fucking much to be so tiny, to look so insignificant. He swipes his good hand across what feels like a sheen of sweat on his forehead, though when his fingers come back covered neon-glinting red, he guesses again. This injury, a deep scrape that stings when he brushes across it, touch feather-light, makes sense. He fell. He hit his head.

No. That's not right. His thoughts loop around and double back, trying to piece together what just happened. He—he heard someone, right? And then—and then, nothing. A blackness deep enough to lose himself in.

Someone else was here.

His stomach churns, a smug little parallel to last night's whiskey overload. The bile creeps up though he tries to push it back down, rivulets pushing past his teeth until he gives in and wretches, splashing his hands and sleeves. He's wrung himself out, teetering on the edge of exhausted hysteria, colors and shapes swimming in front of his eyes like a kaleidoscope on acid. He crawls forward, edging toward the house, maybe, but a sound like the time of a heart gets closer and closer and then his hands are in water, a cold shock that ripples through him and makes his skin feel like it's two sizes too tight, an itch just under the surface that has no relief. He twitches and writhes, body hitching and freezing in jutting angles and gruesome positions. Maybe this is what is it to die. Maybe whatever hit him triggered a ticking-time bomb aneurysm in his brain and this is the delicate flesh of veins and membranes flooding and breaking, giving under pressure.

Relief, surprising but sure, flickers through him. If this is the end, he holds his arms out and presses death to his chest, greeting it like an old friend. There should be sorrow, and maybe the absence of it is tragic, but the thought of it all going away, every thought, every feeling—it's good. It's perfect. His thoughts crinkle at the edges, folding in like paper held over a flame. Now it's like sliding down a snow-slicked mountain, cool and giddy and his heart is in his throat, beating beating beating a tattoo in his chest. There's a flash of green, a gold-brown studded spectrum that feels like air on a fall morning, and then nothing at all.

The accident happened on a clear day. That's what they told Castiel afterward, when he was sitting at home after work, a cup of tea in his hands, its steam warming the underside of his chin with fragrant chamomile and mint. The policeman had knocked on his door and he remembers thinking it strange, wondering why he was being looked in the eye as concrete blocks were stacked on his chest instead of told in dead tones over the telephone that his loved one had been snuffed as easily as a flame by licked-damp fingertips. The officer introduced himself first a a friend of Finn's, a college acquaintance and weight-lifting companion. Castiel had nodded dumbly and waited for him to get to the point, numbness already settling on his shoulders, making itself at home.

It had been quick, the officer said, dark eyes boring into his so earnestly. The man's words tumble out, clicking like a projector as it starts up and its reels begin to turn, a movie of snapshots flickering to life. Finn had been driving home, the slanting sun at his back. Castiel had made dinner. Chicken, roasting in the oven with thick chunks of potatoes, carrots and green beans picked from the garden out back. He'd washed them all, smiling to himself for having gotten home early enough to make his partner's favorite meal. The minutes passed and he found himself irritated at Finn's increasing lateness. He didn't know that the reason for Finn's absence was the fact that his car had flown over a guard rail and down a hill, turning end over end until it came to rest at the bottom, metal creaking and engine coughing once, twice, before dying.

Someone had tried to pass Finn. But they didn't look. So they didn't see the oncoming car that was most certainly there, horn loud and brakes high-pitched as it tried to stop what inertia wasn't about to let go of. The passing car fishtailed, back end slamming into Finn, who pulled the wheel and looked at the other driver a moment before he was airborne, a perfect second of stillness and quiet before time snapped back and he was slammed into the glass of his window. He left his blood there, against a spider web of cracks that sucked the ruby gloss up like a throat gasping for water.

By the time the story had trickled out of the police officer, Castiel's tea had gone cold, the cup a dead weight in his hands until it wasn't, until it was falling to the floor without him noticing it slipping away. It shattered with a dull thud, breaking neatly in half, leaving a dent in the soft wood below.

Waking up is crawling over glass dipped in acid, a slow, pointless journey that some dogged part of Castiel insists upon taking. But there's a sharp-edged need in him, a drive that cuts through exhaustion and pain and confusion, drags him upwards, forwards, a leash he can't help but follow.

Castiel.

There's—he hears something, a voice, but it's not really hearing, it's feeling and seeing and maybe smelling, something slick and clear and crystal like the first breath of winter air as it chases warmth away. It's inside him, reaching, calling and asking that he obey, that he follow orders. Castiel thinks of gasoline spilled on sun-streaked pavement, the rainbow illusion held by a black surface. He wants to find the prism of depth that calls to him, that sounds like it needs him as much as he needs something. Anything.

Come to me, Castiel.

There's no choice, nothing but the held-breath excitement that stirs in him, a heat in his blood that makes no sense but doesn't need to; he's wrapped around lust's fingers, entwining fast, tangling himself until he's trapped. There isn't any pain anymore, not when he opens his eyes and the muscles of his arms jerk forward, hands and nails clawing at the earth to urge him forward, to get him moving with direction he doesn't understand.

"Castiel."

He hears it now, tones that are like fingers under his chin, lifting until he can stare straight and pull what's in front of him into focus. He's close to the edge of the lake (Don't go in the water) and the sound is aloe on burnt skin, a gentle lapping sway that feels like home. But he's not left alone with scenery; someone sits with their back to him, the strong planes of it masculine, sharp and tan. He leans on lazy hands, his face angled up toward the sun, his profile cutting a starburst through its rays.

"Hello, Castiel," the stranger murmurs, lips barely opening, sticking together under the day's humidity. He turns and steal's Castiel's next breath, gazes and measures him with eyes a shade of green emeralds would envy. Their depths are intense, the forest's lushest leaves in the first bloom of spring, inlaid with strands of brown and gold, electric little gleams that trip Castiel's heart so it fumbles in his chest, slowing even more as he takes in the severe cut of the other man's jaw, the brown skin flushed pink and kissed with freckles. His nose is straight and his lips are red, generous, and then they're opening, smiling and revealing incisors with a gleam too bright, too diamond-strong to be real. Too sharp to be real, to be normal.

"Come here." The lightest glance of skin pressed to his, dry and sure, and Castiel comes back to life. Energy like fire ignites within every muscle; his skin stops trying to crawl away and curl into a ball.

"Who are you?"

The question passes over his lips, but he's already arching a hand up, tracing it over the other man's fingers, memorizing the lines around his knuckles before moving toward the calluses on his palm. He's closer to the other man suddenly and he can taste the air coming from his mouth, can see the glitter of dried sand on his collarbones. And then, and then, Castiel notices. The skin of the other man's chest is smooth, dotted lightly with baby-fine blonde hair, thickening just under his navel down to where his groin should be. Instead, starting just above hips that Castiel imagines would have a v-cut, (a muscle of Finn's his tongue still remembers, flicking over and down, down,) is a line of silver-green scales, one that continues down over where legs should be and fans out into a translucent fin, thick enough to propel powerfully through water. Castiel's mouth opens, but nothing comes. The words in his mind bump uselessly into one another, thumping dully as time's duties are forgotten and the moment stops.

But the creature doesn't. The space between becomes a memory as his jaw tilts and breath ghosts over Castiel's ear.

"I'm Dean," he says, acting like names matter now, like anything else but the fucking tail between them is important. The sand is rough underneath him, grinding into the palms of his hands, shaking arms that threaten to give out when lips brush over his cheek, resting at the corner of his own mouth. Little boy lashes, long and soot-black lift and the creature's staring up into his eyes, asking questions without words. Castiel's body, at least, knows what it wants. He opens his mouth, tongue flicking out to moisten the skin a split second before Dean claims them. He is the ocean's tide pouring out onto Castiel, insistent and strong. Unstoppable.

"You feel me?" Dean moves down over Castiel's neck, his licks circular, kisses studded with nips, those too-sharp teeth tracing scratches that send a frenzy through his blood, have him bucking his hips up with desperate need.

"Yes," Castiel breathes. "Oh, god, yes." The creature's pulling at his shirt, throwing it into a crumpled heap a few feet away before working on the khaki shorts restricting the strain of his sex as it fills and pulses beneath the confining material. He's naked soon enough and the creature's looking at him, eyes taking in the planes of his too-thin body, the sharp jut of his hips and the length of his legs.

"Come here," The muscles of Deans arms bulge and flex as he lifts himself and swings, pedulum-style, toward the water. Ease settles over him as his tail submerges and turns around to face Castiel. The water welcomes him like a beloved son and he slips though it almost too quickly to see, splashing playfully back at the shore. Castiel moves clumsily, an infant on hands and knees, embarrassed at the slope of his back, his shaky legs and obvious arousal, the heat of its pulse against his thigh. He's burning inside, lit up by the sun and scratched rough by the sand underneath. The water shines in front of him, too bright to be real, a mirage in the heat of the Sahara. His lashes fall like blinds, blocking the burn that spikes at his temples, the tongue of a flame licking gleefully, acid breaking down every last cell.

His skin finds relief, drinks it in when the surface of the lake embraces him, slowly at first, then faster as hands help him in, pulling gently, a flick of Dean's tail reverberating underneath Castiel's legs, the muscle's movement serpentine-fast, water displacing, sliding through his toes. He's taken under, not dragged but guided, dipped like a baptism and every second he's under is a balm to aches he's carried since the day Finn died.

Finn.

But no, no time to think of him now, not when ecstasy is scrabbling in at the edges, fingers heavy on his sex, flirting with the zipper before pulling it down entirely. He wonders if the water around them might begin to boil with the lust that bends his body, arching it into a weightless bridge in Dean's grasp. He's led to the surface, lips parting for air but receiving the attention of the other man's mouth instead. Their tongues meet in a tentative get-to-know-you pattern, light and playful. Dean tastes of a snowflake's instant melt and the intoxication of a second whiskey. Castiel brushes against his incisors, flicking his tongue under the too-sharp point, noting the animal-like length. Head back, Dean gasps at his ministrations, draws his bottom lip under one of the points and bites just a bit too hard because the next think Castiel tastes is iron, bitter like wine and flowing steadily over his tongue. He laves at it without thinking, looking to sooth or fix or just get more because it's like the water but better, slipping down a throat that begs for more.

The bite that comes next, a quick-inhaled shift where Dean's mouth moves down, traces the main artery in Castiel's neck and then pushes through the skin is nails raking over his back, lightning striking through humid air. He's thrashing and crying out, being stroked through an orgasm he didn't feel coming. It trembles through his fingers, makes them twitch and ball into fists he presses into Dean's slippery biceps. The sucking arcs his pleasure into infinity, a horizon-long eternity he floats easily through.

It's cut short, though, when he's dropped abruptly, coughing and sputtering as the water tries to invade his lungs.

"What—"

The face looking at him now holds none of the open attraction it had before. Green eyes are cold, glittering with calculating malice. The smirk on Dean's mouth is ugly, pink corners pulled up into a sneer.

"Thanks, Castiel." Stiff as a board, heavy as a rock sinking to the bottom of the lake. Two words, and Dean is gone, disappearing below the surface. Castiel touches his bleeding neck, the lazy trickles flowing easy like tears down toward his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

The wounds on Castiel's neck are gone by the time his bare feet cross the threshold of the cottage. If they were ever there to begin with. He paces, water lazing from between his toes to the floor, leaving a trail asking to be slipped on. His hair is standing up of its own accord, some spilling over his forehead and he messes it up worse when he runs his hands through the thick mop, trying to will answers, explanations into his wound-tight mind.

It's the drugs. It's the weed and the coke and the alcohol that sit in his blood and keep everything an arm's length away. Chemicals that keeps his eyes glazed and his focus on the now, not the then or the what will be. But he's never hallucinated before. Not a person. Or a...thing. A mermaid? He turns the word over in his head but it doesn't feel right, doesn't fit the blush of fire that radiates through his stomach when he thinks of the creature. Dean.

The image of him has been burned behind Castiel's retinas, carved so the imprint is left behind and all he can see is the sharp jaw and the bright shock of green eyes, darker than jade, slanted in the sun. Dean was tan and inviting, an aesthetic wonder on top, melting into something different, something other where his hips should have led into legs. Glossy scales, healthy vibrant, muscles beneath flicking powerfully. His breath draws in quick with the memory of it ghosting across his legs, the tail and fin light, a feather touch made to set off fireworks in his nerves. Swirling water and his pulse in his ears, the tight coil of his stomach and the quake of release are all just a lash's flutter away. A blink and he's back in the lake, being held, supported by something that didn't exist an hour ago. And now he's naked in his house, shivering though his temples are damp, moisture sure to drip down to his jaw soon enough; he's too distracted to wipe it away, too busy trying to call sanity back into his mind, his body, his life.

Finally he sits, slumps on the floor. There is sand beneath him and the wood is slightly uneven, boards warped over time from salt air and humidity. One of the boards is loose. He toes at it, pushing like a tongue wriggling for something stuck between teeth.

Finn. If he were here then I wouldn't be in a cottage, hallucinating. Fingers idle over his wrist, a pale line against the tan of his skin.

"I'm okay," he tells the empty house, though he doubts it believes him. Not the bland white walls or the word-down floor or the generic furniture that holds no personality, that tells him nothing of an uncle who ignored him until death.

_Last will and testament_. Eyes wide, things start to come together. I inherited more than a house. The thoughts are thick as folios, words whipped like baseballs. Secret and monster and protection all turn up, but none of it means anything because all it does is reinforce a fact he can't come to terms with, can't accept.

The thing in the lake is real. It's not his imagination. His uncle picked him.

_Alone. I'm alone and have no one that could be endangered_ (the creature's face flashes in front of him, eyes dead and mouth turned up in a smirk more malicious a knife clutched loosely by a hand looking for a fight) _so he picked me_. His chest is flushed, cheeks catching fire as his blood is pumped double-time, spiked with ire. The warning in his uncle's letter makes sense now. Fists balled, he thrashes out, feet slamming into the floor, body shaking with rage that has to go somewhere. He can't keep it, can't keep any of it locked inside his body and heart anymore. He screams as he twitches and writhes, an outpouring that's turning into hiccuping sobs before he knows it, hands pounding against the wood beneath him until a sharp crack gives him pause, momentarily. The floorboard beneath his bruising palm (red, soon to be a blue and yellow and lovely violet bloom), has cracked, the middle giving out under his punishing blows. He hits it again, then again until there are wood splinters in his hand and a hole in the floor.

There. In the dark space, almost too narrow for his hand to fit, is something. He squints, reaches for it and finds a piece of paper, folded into fourths. It's wilted, slightly yellow, but as he pulls it from its resting place it catches light and the flash of a watermark winks at him, clear as day.

R pmld blf droo urtfiv gsrh lfg, Xzhgrvo.

R girvw, nb vmgriv oruvgrnv. Yfg R xlfowm'g.

ZWZIL. Urmw z dzb gl vmw rg, nb mvksvd.

It's handwriting he knows, though not well. The same that had greeted him when he'd first entered the cottage. His uncle's. But the delicate paper, held lightly between the pads of his fingers has no message. Only gibberish, words that make no sense upon first, second and third examination. He lets go and it falls heavy to the ground, useless. It can't help him. It can't help anything. The decision he comes to isn't hard. It's a snap, a sharp click of finality that settles over him like the sun casting its hazy beams.

He is going to pretend nothing ever happened. He is going to get up from the floor (knees cracking, hand stinging, has to get the first-aid kit for the splinters) and take a shower and a nap and forget about the green-eyed man. Monster.

He is reborn in the shower. Each droplet is life absorbed back into his soul, an awakening he doesn't quite understand so he just tilts his head up and allows his face to be massaged under the the shower head's nimble pressure. The water tiptoes pathways down his body, some slow and lazy, others in an electric race to reach his feet but both feel like the mouth of a lover exploring uncharted territory—and taking it slow. But a chill sneaks into the spray soon enough and unwilling fingers turn the tap off. He walks into the hall, steam rising of hesitant, translucent curls. The closet across from the bathroom yields slightly rough towels; his uncle was not, apparently, a man who appreciated fabric softener. But it does the job, though it pulls across his skin just lighter than sandpaper. His legs itch as he dries them and his nails leave long trails of scratch marks behind, the red a shock against the pallor of his skin.

The bed that catches him as he collapses into it has a dark blue comforter; simple and masculine and the kind of thing Finn would choose without a second thought.

"It'll bring out your eyes," he would have said, chuckling, tweaking Castiel on the nose, fully expecting the retribution that would come from the childish gesture. And Castiel would have tackled him, or tickled him or wrapped his arms around him and kissed his neck and breathed in his scent and wouldn't have thought anything of it. But this Castiel, the Castiel won't do any of that. His lips forget what it is to pull up into anything other than a grimace, to carry a heart that isn't burned with a mark that isn't ever going away, memories that will never fade.

Sleep's haze rolls over him like clouds in the sky, but just before he drops away from his suddenly upside-down world, two words skitter through his mind like a deer across a road.

_Dean Winchester._

The name settles on the tip of his tongue, ready to be whispered softly, like leaves fluttering to the ground, a patchwork pattern of colors. The syllables are simple, strong and masculine. A little old-fashioned. Suddenly, Castiel isn't so tired anymore, and the laptop case dropped carelessly in the corner of the bedroom, next to an old-fashioned bureau is all he can think of. He unzips it impatiently, the noise quick and assured, and brings it back to the bed. The few moments it takes to boot up are grains of sand in an hourglass, each grain's fall slow, stretching into infinity.

His thumb keeps a beat on the keyboard, tapping out the jangle of his nerves until his search engine opens. He types in the name and sends it out into the cords of the internet, frowning when his first twenty results are all for guns. Or men named Dean who own guns. Rolling his bottom lip between his teeth, pulling at the strands of dry skin there, he tries again. Dean Winchester, Bay View.

More guns.

But he knows he's on the right track when he comes across a local zoning link, one with land deeds and building grants. He clicks on it, comes across two names that stand out about the very plot his uncle's hous—his house—sits upon. The first, and most recent, is his uncle's, along with the date of purchase: 1972. And the next is Dean Winchester, 1900.

The thing in the lake is over 100 years old. Castiel's throat closes at the thought, but as much as his body can shiver and shake and let fear overtake it, his curiosity has been piqued. There is a mystery in front of him, right at his fingertips and it's calling, begging to be solved. He searches again, this time with the date and comes up with a link that looks promising, a back-dated archive piece from the small town paper.

_Search for Winchester Halted With No New Leads_

_Warren Hayes, August 23, 1905_

_The search for Dean Winchester has been called off indefinitely. There is no evidence of foul play, though locals who knew the man swear he would never abandon his home, especially after the tragedy early last fall._

"_He was such a good man," Brenda Haywater was quoted, "I'm sorry. Is a good man. He kept that house in pristine condition after Elizabeth and Laura passed. He'd never leave it like this, for no reason."_

_Haywater was Winchester's closest neighbor. She reported screaming and sounds of water disturbance the night before she noticed his absence. Mr. Winchester's belongings were all present and his residence was untouched. Haywater found Mr. Winchester's horse, Impala, extremely agitated, throwing herself at the walls of the stable._

_For the time being, the state will assume responsibility of the land until Mr. Winchester is declared dead or a relative can prove their claim._

The article is like a loose thread in a sweater; Castiel pulls, and it gives a little, but there's so much more to know. He tries something else.

_Winchester Tragedy 1905_

Tragedy is an interesting word; it covers a multitude of events, all awful, but what Castiel finds when he gets a match for his search is worse than anything he can imagining going through. He reads the words, ants on his screen, cold and neutral. They jump into his mind alive and coiled like a snake about to strike; the events unfold inside of him and suddenly he's not reading anymore but seeing. Watching. And he doesn't want to, wants to turn his head and close his eyes and pretend he can't smell the blood and sweat, can't feel the chill in his bones that burrows down and lays anchor.

There are two women. One is in her early thirties; the other, obviously, her daughter. The mother is gentle curves and long, dark hair, soft eyes when she looks at her daughter, a sharp gaze the rest of the time. The daughter's hair is lighter, a caramel brown that's a shock against the green of her eyes. It's night. The mother encourages her daughter to go to bed; when she wakes up, her father will be home and they can all go to the beach together, just like she'd been promised.

"Elizabeth," the mother warns, hand on her hip, though there's no real anger in her pose. Her daughter opens her mouth to answer, though a sharp knock at the door silences her before the words even bloom in her throat.

"Oh," the mother says, walking the short distance from the living room to the door. "Who's there?"

"Dean Winchester sent us," a gruff voice comes from the other side, reedy and thin. "Ma'am, please open the door."

A look crosses her face, as if she knows she shouldn't, but the name—her husband, Castiel assumes, warnings blaring in his mind loud as war sirens—is all she can hear. What if something's happened to Dean? She opens the door.

There are two men waiting. What happens next is a slow, evil slide into sadism that Castiel can't look away from; he shuts his eyes, it's in his head. He screams, no one hears him. The mother begs for her daughter's life, pleads to bear the brunt of whatever cruelty the men possess, but they've already chosen and they carry out their mindless savagery. They hurt Dean's wife first, tearing at her loose nightgown, forcing themselves on her before carving names and patterns into her skin, the blood running freely and thick, salty in the air. She never stops speaking, though, never stops assuring her daughter that it's _all going to be alright, that everything's going to be ok and Mommy's going to be right as rain_ and _Don't turn around, Elizabeth!_

The words slur after awhile, when there's nothing left of the woman but her will to live for her daughter, and even that begins to wane. When she's silenced, blue eyes open in a forever stare at the ceiling, they advance on the child. Castiel's throat aches with his screams, and the next thing he knows, he's standing outside in the sand, near the bodies of the two. They've been arranged into a garish caricature of a loving embrace, a mother clutching her daughter, though both are so blood-slicked that it does nothing but turn his stomach. Behind him, the unmistakable sound of hoof beats echo, and he hears a sharp whinny.

"Shh, Impala. It's alright."

Turning around on numb feet, Castiel finds a familiar face hovering in the darkness. Dean rides easily, body rolling with the horse's momentum, until his gaze falls on the bodies in front of him. He jerks the reigns unconsciously and the horse rears, front hoofs coming off the ground. Dean doesn't seem to care, swings his leg (short, sturdy, no scales in sight) over the beast's side and jumps down, racing to his wife and daughter. He doesn't hesitate to pull them both to his chest, blood smearing across his shirt and face, mouth open in horror, whimpers and heavy breath spilling into the night air.

A few feet away, something splashes in the water, a vague shape Castiel only half-catches with a quick turn of his head. He's thankful, almost, because looking at Dean's face, the emptiness in those prism eyes and the tight stretch of loss seeping out of every pore is overwhelming. His breath hisses away and he closes his eyes.

_Wake up. Castiel, wake up._

His computer sits in front of him, having gone into hibernation mode. Something hits his lap light like a drop of water, a hollow sound of wet on skin. He brings his hand to his nose. It's bleeding.


	4. Chapter 4

The lake is still. Castiel peers through the window, hands blocking the blood that still trickles river-slow from his nose. They color the tips a red bright as lipstick, as candy apples he'd eaten as a child in Autumn. There's a trail of it, dots and dashes of his life left like breadcrumbs on the floorboards. Doesn't matter. Everything is hazed in death now; the gravel of the driveway in front of him shifts with a second sight, bodies laid out and a soul twisted with grief.

The first step outside is an accident. The wood of the deck is underfoot and he can't turn back now. It's painted white, the wood, though the sea air peels it off in plastic curls, the years and salt more than a match for the off-white shade, some of it sticking to his feet as he steps forward and then again, dreading the moment he steps down into the gravel-lined driveway. He's being led, really, a rope around his wrist and it's _pulling,_ dragging him forward while the rest of him is begging_pleading_no, a shrieking that's lessened to a blank, unfeeling fog inside. The usually satisfying crunch of the rocks is chalk pressed too hard against a blackboard, loud and obnoxious.

Ten feet and he'll be right there, standing where two bodies were laid out, puppets to torment the man who'd wanted only to come home, to rest a tired head and heart and...

Castiel stops when he reaches where their bodies would have been. Copper tangs its sick sweet melody in his nose, flashes of the past flickering behind his eyes. The splash behind him, quiet ripples hitting the shore, don't distract him from the past as it mixes with his own loss, a grip that crushes him, a cigarette still smoking under fingers snubbing it out. He sits, half on his folded legs, ignoring the discomfort of the sandpaper-faced rocks beneath. Eyes remain dry as he stares into the emptiness before him, a choking emptiness unfolding in his heart. It's too much, a sea to drown in and he can't—if he lets it devour him, there's no coming back. But that doesn't stop him from laying his cheek down to the ground, pressing it in hard, curling his fingers into the dirt, gravel slipping beneath his nails. He breathes. He breathes in and out and somewhere in between one moment and the next the deep cycle turns rough, sobs that he doesn't want to admit come from him.

But with each shudder, each hitch and hot-streaked tear that falls from him, Castiel gets lighter. Hands unclench and the straining muscles of his back relax. He sighs into the ground, eyes sticky with sand, burning as he tries not to dig the heels of his hands in to scratch. Hands and knees work better than legs at the moment, so he crawls toward the bank of the lake and only thinks better of it once before plunging forward. The water opens its arms and brushes his skin like a lover, clearing the sand and his eyes. It's cool against naked skin, clothes forgotten, shame left behind like a book forgotten on a bus. He allows himself to sink, the pleading of his lungs for air only a mild discomfort, something to forget for a moment while he pretends nothing exists.

And then something skirts past his leg, a silk press of barely-there flesh, appendages that humans don't have. He sputters, shock overriding sense to fill his throat with water. The disrupted surface of the lake churns further when he bursts through the surface, sending ripples in every direction as he coughs and chokes, stomach twisting to rid itself of its unwelcome intruder. Heart racing now, he whips around in circles, wiping trails of water from his face, though they cling to his hair, ready to replace their fallen brothers a moment later.

_Leave,_ the sane part of him orders, the part that tells him to use his seat belt and brush his teeth and to leave the fucking razors alone, to put them back where they belong and stop gazing at them like they're a solution. But it's weaker now, reed-thin and easy enough to ignore. So he stays, stopping as he turns to look over his shoulder and catches the surfacing of a dark-haired man with eyes that don't quite match the sneer on his pretty mouth.

"Back so soon, are we?" He mocks Castiel, a cutting tone that would have him blushing, though he's beyond it now. He_knows_ this creature, understands something in it.

"What did you do to me?" Dean circles around Castiel, tail powerful, creating waves that have him kicking harder to remain in one place.

"Nothing you didn't want," he smirks, showing off those small fangs. They're wicked, surreal, and Castiel's tongue itches to lick them. To make sure they're actually exist.

"Don't give me that shit," his lips slip under the water as a harsher, hacking cough grips him. The hands on his back are a surprise; he shies away from them, but they grip hard and lift.

"Breathe."

There's confusion in those strange green eyes, one look down and then up, a reflective sort of spark that piques Castiel's curiosity. The creature is one of a thousand masks, and he wants to peel them off one by one.

"I saw what happened," he whispers to the water, Dean behind him, fingers curled around his biceps, now with enough pressure to leave 10 neat bruises. "I saw your wife and daughter."

"You don't know anything," he gets, a cold reply that would be fairly convincing in its apathy, save for the tremor just underneath the soft growl. "I have no family."

"You did." The hands move up to his shoulders and Castiel feels weightless, staring into an endless expanse where the sky kisses water. It spurs him on, the euphoria of gazing into infinity, so he reaches back, crossing his arm over his heart and rests his hand on Dean's. He doesn't expect the creature to cry out, a low simmer of agony, bowstrings pulled tight, just before ripping away from the frets. The chest against his back, cool as a distant star, goes limp and all that keeps Dean from falling under the surface is the hand Castiel still holds, though now its weight is awkward, dead. He turns to support Dean, whose eyes are open but blank, mouth slack.

"Hey," he whispers, a breath away from that pink flush of skin, and when he says it again they touch, accidentally or on purpose, but it's all he can think of now, to touch, and so he presses down harder, wrapping himself around Dean, pleading with his body for the other man, the creature, the _thing_, to just wake up. He doesn't care about the dig of teeth into his bottom lip, doesn't understand _why_ he needs the other man to be alright, but it doesn't matter. An eternity passes, lives upon lives and he's just holding the other man, waiting for those stuck-together lashes to part, for the soot of them to steal Castiel's breath as they rise over veridian bright enough to unsettle.

When they finally do, Dean looking up at him in confusion for a split second before opening his mouth wider, a need-air reflex, Castiel backs up and their lips part, sticking just a moment, painting Dean's mouth with blood he doesn't remember losing. He's staring at Castiel, tongue tracing gently the lines and indents of his bottom lip, gathering Castiel's essence to be guided back down his throat, to taste, to absorb. He's staring and Castiel just looks back into a wall of confusion, uncertainty pulling the sharp angles of Dean's face even tighter, making him look even more the beautiful, dangerous predator he seems to be.

"What's happening?"

The question is time speeding back up and then quickening; it's a shock enough that Dean pushes him, tail twitching between Castiel's legs.

"Stay away. Just get away from here."

Without a backward glance, Dean glides away, each movement like the curve a snake's boneless back.

Castiel holds a piece of wrinkled paper in his hand, though it's been smoothed, pressed flat with now-dry hands. He glances down at the gibberish, then back at his laptop. It had overheated on the bed, motor running too hot during his strange excursion. He takes his tasks in steps. Getting dressed was the easiest; legs through shorts, arms through a shirt, pull up, pull down, finished. Fishing the forgotten note off the floor had been more difficult. It had been surrounded by the drops of his bloody nose, a reminder of the bizarro world he'd opened the door to, the key lost in the shuffle.

The code is a neat bit of scrawl, efficient handwriting with no flourishes.

_R pmld blf droo urtfiv gsrh lfg, Xzhgrvo._

_R girvw, nb vmgriv oruvgrnv. Yfg R xlfowm'g._

_ZWZIL. Urmw z dzb gl vmw rg, nb mvksvd._

He notices the Rs first. It stands alone, which means, most likely, it's an I. Or an A. But the frequency of it; Castiel brings a hand to his mouth, chews on the haggard nail of his index finger nail writes the alphabet out neatly. Underneath I, he writes R, and then his answer stares him in the face. The encoded note is the alphabet, backwards. The words come together like ants on a picnic blanket, black dots stark against the white of the paper.

_I know you will figure this out, Castiel.  
I tried, my entire lifetime. But I couldn't.  
ADARO. Find a way to end it, my nephew._

Adaro. The word curls itself around his tongue, a quiet utterance that leaves his lips pursed, ready to be kissed. It's the only non sequitur in an otherwise normal note.

_Adaro, adaro, adaro._

It's echoey, a trill of the familiar that Castiel digs for, memory that edges away as he gets close. Pulling his computer back into his lap, he types the word, holds his breath and presses the enter button. The results are lists and lists of mythology resources, ghouls and goblins and bump-in-the-night monsters:

_The adaro, unlike its more benevolent relative, the mercreature, is not something to be trifled with. Beautiful, appealing to men and women alike, the adaro is a lost soul, one trapped in an eternity of suffering and grief._

_The first adaro is said to have been a rich merchant who cared too much for his drink and adultery and not enough for the lives of his wife and children. His involvement in dishonest trade led to their rather brutal deaths. When he dared ask the Gods for revenge, they handed down a spell that transformed legs into fins, teeth into fangs, mortality into and endless procession of days._

_What the Gods didn't realize was that the curse could be passed on. The thrall of an adaro is as powerful as a siren's song, and much more dangerous. They attract and are attracted to those without hope, those clinging onto life by the tips of their fingers. It has not been made clear, exactly, how the curse is passed on, only that the adaro will willingly take victims to end its own suffering._

_The curse is passed on, and the adaro perishes._

It doesn't come above the water for any real reason. Sometimes the night air is easier to breathe, less thick than the blue-black water lapping at its shoulders. It smirks at the house only a few hundred feet away, a structure it doesn't like to look at very often because a curl of wrongness always starts in his stomach, hot and tight and it doesn't go away until it dives back down to the coolest part of the lake and stretches out there, letting the gills by its hips and neck work peacefully.

But now...it wants to see. It wants to know what's going on behind the glow of curtains and blinds, to see the man with sky eyes and night hair. It wants to taste him again, the bittersweet of loss and pain and anger, all easy on its tongue, energy to take and take and take. It's good at taking now, breathing in the lives of others, the tears and the frowns and the quiet-loud thoughts people leave to fester in their minds.

But _this_ human. He's good, too good. Everything about him is what it wants and needs and oh, it was so close to having it all today. But it pushed him away, told him to get out. _Get away _words while its body howled for the man to come closer, to let it taste and bite and feed. It had been shaken, that's all. Unsure of why it lost consciousness, why it woke up in the man's arms, lips pressed to his. The human should have wanted to run, should have left it there to drown, though it wouldn't have.

It heaves itself onto the sand, tail ungainly and awkward on the land, muscles all wrong for the gritty surface. Doesn't matter though, not now. It lifts itself like pendulum, reaches the end of the beach and stares at the uneven rocks leading down to the road. It lays down. The sky above is limitless and it is but a speck. It raises its arms, not minding the scrapes as it stretches, reaching for something on either side, flickers of the past and emotions it doesn't know what to do with anymore.

"Soon," it assures the empty air, arching its back, a flick of the tail punctuation of its guarantee. It itches at its waist, frowning at the feeling of tight skin. It's too dark, though, to see how the scales there have lightened into a cast-over-morning grey.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel wakes to the warmth of light on his face, the glow of it an insistent pull that draws him from the shadowed shapes in his dreams. He doesn't remember falling asleep, though his laptop is on the floor by his bed, shut and turned off. But his mind can slither away from the situation easily enough, can swerve around yet another fact he doesn't want to face. He rolls his shoulders, stretches his arms over his head and feels the sweet pain of muscles waking from sleep's heavy paralysis. Of course, waking is the opening of the mind's dam that's been squeezed shut by dreams. All of the past few days come back to him at once, and the word _adaro_ is heavy in his mind and on his lips.

Castiel presses his together with the memory of Dean's still on them, the taste of copper passed between mouths, a channel opening up between the two with every breath SHARED. He sees Dean now, the beauty of the creature that used to be human, the danger of him like a knife glinting in moonlight. He wonders, if he weren't so far gone, would he find Dean disgusting? Because all he knows now is broad, muscled symmetry, a dusting of freckles across a high-bridged nose and eyes that shimmer like they've got stars buried in their depths, earth and sky merged into a spider web of beauty made to trap Castiel, to hold him hostage as those lips, full, soft, open and the danger behind them is revealed.

But that danger, those teeth, they _do_ things to him, and the mere thought of their scrape against his skin has him arching into his bed, blood streaming down to a place it hasn't gone (while conscious) for longer than he can remember. He doesn't want to fight it, doesn't want to embrace it either, the heat building in his stomach, boiling in his veins, and so for a moment, it walks across a tightrope threaded through his heart, each step more unsteady than the last.

Is his hand acting on its own when it slips under his boxers? When he takes his own velvet warmth in his hand and strokes, body quaking with each movement? Sparks crackle up his spine, erupt in his mind and snap his eyes shut tight so they can firework there, behind the lids. He's breathing shallow now, like he's treading water and only able to keep his head just above the waves. But the pleasure, arching out now across him, building like a fire consuming him from the inside out, draws him under, down, until it robs him of breath, exploding in light and heat. But even as he loses himself to his body, it's as if Dean's eyes are on him, smirk firmly in place. Watching. Waiting.

The drowse left behind in Castiel's body after he's been wracked by ecstasy's electric release draws him back toward sleep, but the cooling stickiness on his thighs is enough to pull back from it, to get up and head stiff-legged to the bathroom.

The fluorescent lights blink once, twice, before illuminating Castiel's face in the mirror. He looks, for once, takes in the faint bruising beneath glazed eyes, stubble gone far past five o'clock, and a mouth lined with the cracks of too-dry skin. No wonder he'd begun to avoid mirrors months ago; he's got the look of a man rotting in his own skin. And maybe he is. Maybe he's pushing his body to the limit, seeing how far he'll go before self-preservation, some stupid animal instinct pulls him back from the edge with a hiss and a warning. Then again, he wonders if that is strong enough in him anymore; if he'll want to go back instead of simply burning out one day, a quiet snuff like a candle under wet fingers.

_Give it a rest with the melancholia_, he snarls to himself before turning on the hot water and climbing into the close quarters of the shower. The water pressure is good, strong, and it pounds a melody into his back that feels like comfort, hands of a loved one moving up shoulder blades to remove the kinks there. He tips his head back, mouth parted, a sigh escaping them as he runs his tongue over his teeth, wondering if he brushed them at all yesterday, when, as he gets to his canine teeth, the world tilts off its axis and he has to grip the wall of the shower to remain standing. Hesitantly, he licks across them again, feeling normalcy—until he doesn't.

Shower still running, beating a tattoo into the bottom of the tub, he steps out, water coursing down soaked skin, though he pays it no mind. He looks into the mirror again, wiping the steam from its cool face, and grips the sides of the sink before lifting the skin of his top lip into a sneer-smile, though his eyes are still cast down because as long as they remain glued to the drain, this isn't happening, this isn't real and he is still ok. Fucked-up, but ok.

_Come on_, he urges himself, internal voice betraying him as well, the echo of it weak. Thin. _Just do it._

He lifts his head and sees. Sees the sudden and definite change in his teeth, their length not-quite fangs, but well on their way. They're thinner at the end, deadly sharp, and they don't belong in his mouth. Don't belong in a human's mouth.

His body starts moving before his mind catches up, streaking through the house until he's at the front door, anger pulsing through him, pushing down his mind so heavily that he can barely work the lock, snapping it with such force that the tips of his nails crack, but pain doesn't come. He leaves bloody fingerprints on the door as he leaves the house behind, the outside air cool on wet skin.

"Dean!" He bellows at the water. Fury is like lightning in his voice, streaking through it, dragging a current of power through the desperation. The humanity. Again he shouts the monster's name, fists balled at his side, blood dripping onto the pavement now, splattering across his legs when he brings his hands to his head, choking on disbelief. _Can't be happening. Can't be real._

"I didn't know social calls happened in the nude, Cas," a silky voice says from beneath him. Dean's near the end of the dock, head just above the opaque water. His lips are spread in a smile, but behind his eyes is green-tinged ice, the gaze of a predator as it backs its prey into a wall. And yet, even as he eyes Castiel, coiled with thirst, smug with some unknown triumph, he's still lit up golden by the sun, a god in his perfection. A monster without human fault. And then Dean tilts his head, appraising Castiel, taking in a body that's suddenly, horribly, alien, and something snaps in him, rings in his ears, pushes him forward.

"_You,_" he snarls, launching himself into the water, arms encircling Dean, holding him there by the element of surprise alone. They both go under, but Dean's tail reacts automatically and drags them back up, hair plastered across foreheads, water coming down like tears over their faces, dripping off long lashes.

"What are you _doing_ to me?" Castiel growls, his voice resonating deep in his chest, the echo of it enough to make Dean's skin hum as well. He sneers, shows the fangs that weren't there yesterday, and glares into Dean's eyes, waiting.

He doesn't arms to wrap themselves around him in return, a mouth to come down hard on his, incongruent with the softness of the lips beneath the force. Shock parts Castiel's lips and heat quickly follows, a tongue that caresses once, twisting against his own before it moves up to trace the points of the new teeth (_not mine, can't be mine, take them away)_.

Dean laves at the tip, lightly at first, with reverence like hands clasped, before he drives the muscle up and a new liquid fills their joined mouths, a nectar that kicks harder than whiskey but burns so cold, thrills his veins and tastes like vengeance and raw, wild energy.

"No," It's a sluggish response, one spoken into Dean's mouth, but with a tilt of his head Castiel frees himself, eyes rolling to the sky's endless haze, a shade so similar to his own_. Breathe. In. Out_. Repeat. He likes the pattern, can hold onto it like a rope dangled over a cliff, can use it as a lifeline against the tsunami rising inside that insists he tastes more of Dean, the heady elixir that has his head separated into puzzle pieces scattering further apart with each passing moment.

"Well," he hears, the voice guttural now, demon-low, "If you wont…"

He's too far gone to brace himself for what comes next, a spotlight of inside-out agony in the form of two pinpricks at his throat. But oh, he can feel Dean there, pulling in at the fount of his neck and the pain becomes a sort of clarity, a realization that this could be the end, and maybe he welcomes it, after all.

He can't keep hold of the thought for very long, though, because soft as moth wings, then more insistent, louder, images start to flicker through his mind. Fast, hard, then uncontrolled. He lets himself go, sinks into the river and lets it sweep him away, into a current that dances fingers over his heated brow, promises peace in its irresistible current.

It doesn't remember much. Nothing before the lake, the cool depths that do nothing to calm the embers buried inside him, lighting his stomach and his throat with need, such great _need._ It knows waiting. The procession of time spent, watching endless lives flicker past and finding none satisfactory. Humans. They enjoy their melancholia, allow themselves to be wrapped in sadness like silk sheets, tremulous and wanting over impervious skin. But none ever match Its desire, none have so little left within that they can take the fire that's ready, waiting, inside of It.

Before the dagger-sharp of Its teeth break the still-human skin of the man from the house, _Castiel_ , It thinks, maybe it's done. Maybe the need will be quenched by this ache of a person, by the grief that hangs around him like the shroud of a widower. It sees the changes, anyway; the glow of eyes like a cat in the dark, and teeth that show the savagery of the animal just beneath. Castiel was like It before It'd ever laid a hand on the human, anyway.

But all of that gets pushed away when the first scorch of blood rolls down Its throat. It doesn't get a chance to swallow twice before consciousness starts to blacken around the edges, smoke seeping into Its eyes until all that's left is a sigh of breath that pushes from Its lungs.

It comes to when the pictures begin to flood in. It hisses at them, the size of them and the strange pull they bring, but It's hostage to the procession.

It sees a man, sitting at the edge of a lake. The sun rests on the horizon, painting the earth in a loving gold, though it doesn't reach the presence sitting cross-legged on the end of a dock. His stare is frozen, unseeing, though his gaze is aimed at the still water beneath. Behind him, dark red stains smear the dusty drive leading up to a modest house. It should be licking its lips, pointed teeth aching for what is obviously blood, and the sorrow that must follow it, but the sight, the sweet scent of decay sends a jolt through Its stomach like icy fingers of fear. Uncertainty.

It settles Its gaze back on the man.

He's on his knees now, eyes ticking over the water, searching, until they stop, fixed on a singular point. The man is wide-eyed, but surprise doesn't move past the muscles of his face.

"I'm hallucinating now," he mumbles, shaking his head. The words are chalk-dry, bitten off. The man rises on slightly-bowed legs, a soft moan escaping as the disks of his back crack and realign after sitting so long. Broad back turned, the man freezes at the sound of something behind him.

Water displacement. The echoes of a rippling lake. And then a voice.

"You're not imagining anything, Dean Winchester."

Maybe It's imagining when It sees the man flinch, but the echo of that name…it calls out with warm, familiarity wrapping itself around his fingers. Dean. That's what it called himself when the human, Castiel, asked. But It was just a sound to him. A syllable that rolled off the tongue, though the memory behind it had turned to ash.

_Can't be_, It whispers to himself.

The man, Dean, spins around in search of the voice. And he finds it.

"No," Dean whispers, "You're not real. I've never seen you before this. You can't be real."

A hand grasps the dock, and then a second. Long fingers, square palms. The nails maybe a bit too long, too like the reflective glass of a window pane. A face rises now, rests on lean, muscled arms. He is dark, eyes and hair like the night, though no stars swim here, in his depths. Just a lack, a pool of dark so easy to drown in.

"You were never so _delicious_ before, Dean." He holds a hand out, water dripping, painting the dock a darker shade of grey in miniscule explosions.

"I don't understand," Dean mutters, and maybe in spite of himself, he takes a step forward, one bare foot in front of the other, gripping the wood underneath him tight as the real world falls away.

"Come here, Dean. Come here, beautiful. Let me take your pain away. Let me bear your burden." That voice. The creature is layering it with something, temptation sleek and melodious, thick as opium smoke and sweet as perfume.

The reaching hand meets dry digits, grasps them and pulls himself onto the dock, splayed out for the human to see.

"Do you want the pain to go away, Dean?" the creature pulls the man's hand down to his tail, lets calloused skin touch the slick of scales, the wonder of things that shouldn't exist outside of fantasy.

"Do you want it to stop?"

Dean breaks at those words. Shoulders slumped, caught by the creature he rocks forward, mouth open to scream though only winded gasps come out, the silence of desecration that can't be voiced, of sorrow that goes too deep to be purged.

"You were going to drown yourself out here, weren't you?"

"What—" The human's eyes are so _bright_ now, refractions of grief-salted water waiting just a moment before their escape, a tumble down stubbled terrain. "What are you?"

"Call me Michael," the creature whispers, before lifting Dean's chin, surging forward to fuse their mouths together. Time stills, and in that moment it seems as if the human might back away, might fight the encounter, but then the hitch is corrected and forward motion begins again, his lips opening, receiving, _wanting._

It looks on, stock still as the creature, Michael, opens eyes that now blaze with light hotter than any flame; a white glow pours out from them, and then flows from his mouth, but Dean doesn't notice, or can't escape from the pleasure that keeps him enraptured, strung tight like guitar strings played expertly by the thing that's got its claws in tight, now. The light overtakes the human, burns bright from inside until it obscures his features entirely, until he's a supernova better fitting the night sky than this small town.

And then, just as quickly as it began, the light cuts out, and two chests are left heaving on either side. Michael breathes heavier though, tremulous breath that has his hands fluttering to his heart, eyes wide, open with a clarity that locks onto the human before him.

"I—" the voice is sandpaper-scratched now, and the creature winces. "I'm so sorry."

And then, an explosion.

It is engulfed, caught in the frenzy of a fever that crackles every synapse, lighting up all nerve endings with such ferocity that he'd willingly beat down death's door to make it stop, to keep his blood from burning through his veins and skin, a destruction that separates the pieces of his very core. Eyes forced open see the scramble of the human back to his house, each step forward over broken glass and heated coal. The torture fills them both, and then, with clarity cool as morning's first light, there is realization.

He awakes with his teeth still in the not-quite-human's neck. Disgust closes his throat, turning the blood bitter and sharp. The world spins around him and he lets go, falling back on the water, arms scrabbling to find purchase, to find the balance that held him so beautifully all these years. But the muscle of his tail feels sluggish, unsure, and his eyes can't focus for the water that skews his vision _(the lake isn't hot, Dean_), and now that same water is dripping down his nose and cheeks and his chest is making the motions of breath, the up and down of life but everything's too tight, and the quaking inside threatens collapse. He means to duck under the water, to swim back to where he belongs and curl up for the night, to chase away the memories, the ribbons that have begun to tie him to a time _before_ all this, when he wasn't a monster, when he didn't thirst for the despair in others.

But he's pulled back by the sight of pale skin floating on water, still skin that hasn't found the will to tread its way to the shore. His hands shake as he guides the man out of the lake, turns him on his stomach and beats at his back, trying to banish water from unready lungs.

"Don't," he whispers, maybe to himself. "Don't."

There—the shuddering draw of breath—faint, but present. The man's heart beats. Dean draws his hand back, hesitant to touch anymore, to take any more, but when his fingers glide across slick, pebbled flesh instead of yielding human skin, he can't help but look.

There, on the jut of Castiel's hip. Scales.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel's lungs burn. Not the pleasant hum of being pushed too hard during a run, steps pounding faster than blood can stream; no, this is the grate of skin against pavement, rocks against the blade of a knife.

"Ow," he whispers to himself, head falling to the side. He doesn't open his eyes yet, though, preferring to slowly take stock of the rest of himself. To see what else has been maimed in the showdown between himself and the thing in the lake.

His neck pulses warm, agitated by the motion of his head. The ache is dull, though, a stretch like half-healed wounds. An itch, not a pain. His body is heavy with the cautionary throb of a just-cooled fever, somewhere between lethargy and the shakiness of an immune system in overdrive.

As he comes back to himself, though, toes stretching and legs moving to shift up toward his chest, he hears the low echo of water splashing, feels the heaviness of it on his skin as it moves gently over him. Eyes open, now, he sees that his legs are submerged, though his upper body is safely on the beach, away from the treacherous fingers of a rising tide.

_How did I…_

The question doesn't need to form, really, because a glance to his left reveals the easy answer. Dean.

The adaro lies motionless, head turned away from Castiel. The only sign of life is the slight twitch of his chest up and down, and then the soft lull of a voice, a whisper, maybe not even meant for him.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry."

The words, delicate as dandelion fluff in the wind, pool in Castiel's stomach like a rock, though it quickly melts to magma and spreads to his blood, vessels burning.

"_Sorry?" _he hisses, throat protesting, the rasp of his voice barely able to push past his lips. "_You're sorry?" _

He rolls, clambers onto hands and knees that will later regret sliding so quickly along the rough surface of the sand underneath him. But not now. Not when all he's focused on is getting to Dean, and he does, hands on the thing's shoulders, nails digging in, pushing so the monster's staring suddenly up at him, eyes wide, cheeks wet.

The green is brighter, more jarring against the sheen of tears. The monster's lashes stick together, but their length is still little-boy sweet, and for a moment, a split second, Castiel is taken aback by the sense of hopelessness— and…is that _fear _in Dean's eyes?

Something shifts in him then, opens itself up like a flower blooming to soak up the sun. He _wants_ the pain that flashes across Dean's face, wants the hollow ache of whatever's happening inside him. His tongue slicks his lips and he raises a balled fist, the sharp crack of it against Dean's jaw satisfying enough that he hisses through his teeth, a warm wave of pleasure echoing the blow. Dean moans softly beneath him; from pleasure or pain, Castiel doesn't know, but he does enjoy the shudder of the other man, the trembling of unsteady breath and deep grief.

"How sorry are you, Dean? Huh?" He traces the other man's jaw, the light stubble there, fingers scratching at the sharp-angled bone. "You've turned me into a monster, Dean, so sorry—"

Something moves in front of him and his words cut off, lose their wings to flutter to the ground softly as flakes of snow. He looks up, brows drawing together because he heard no car, no footfalls to warn him of another presence. But as his eyes take in the details of the man in front of him, he understands why.

Whiskey-toned eyes, just a shade too bright, pin him with their unblinking gaze. He is turned to stone, mouth open, trying to form the words of an explanation that doesn't come. There's nothing.

"Castiel." Three syllables hold enough sadness, enough disappointment to wash over him like a tidal wave. He's pulled under, washed clean of the strange hunger he felt, leaving only hot, aching shame behind.

"Finn," he grits, too-long teeth stabbing into his bottom lip, blood welling up to dribble down toward his chin. He flinches when the apparition moves closer, can't help but want to curl in on himself, make himself smaller so his love can't see what he's become. What he's becoming.

"Cas," Finn's close now, so _close,_ and he's reaching out, hand on Castiel's cheek now, thumb rubbing the skin, a gesture so comforting, so warm familiar _home_ that he gasps out loud, a sob echoing through his chest like a phantom heartbeat.

"Oh, god," he says, hand covering Finn's, grasping at his dead lover's arm. "Oh god, Finn."

"Shhh," Finn kneels, pulls Castiel to his chest, a broad space that's somehow warm and steady and smells like rain and the cold of fall. He wipes the blood from Castiel's chin, brushes a kiss across his forehead that sears through him, love and warmth and trust bursting in its wake.

"Cas," Finn says again, backing off to look into his eyes. "This isn't you."

"I—" He wants to _explain_, to tell Finn how this happened _to_ him, how it hurts so much to be alive, how he just wants it all to be over because Finn took his heart with him when he left, but as he looks into his lover's eyes, the honey-warmth there, he realizes how empty it would sound.

"Help him, Cas," Finn's lips thin, now, eyes ticking back and forth on his own. "You have to help him." And then he's pressing forward, pressing a kiss to Castiel's mouth, licking it open, deftly maneuvering around the fangs that have taken up residence there.

"Please," Castiel whispers, breathing Finn's air, hands in the other man's hair, pressing tight so hearts can beat as one, "Please don't go."

Finn's lips quirk up to one side, though the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Sorry, babe," he says, eyes filling to mirror Castiel's own, warm wet burning and distorting the world in front of him, "But I have to."

And just like that, he fades away, until the only thing Castiel is left with is the sound of his own quick breath and a pressure in his eyes that tells him the tears on his cheeks won't be the only ones to fall.

Slowly, Castiel becomes aware that there's a slight weight on his shoulder, a tentative presence that neither squeezes with comfort, nor clasps in friendship. It just is.

Dean is sitting up, now, eyes locked on his with an expression that he can't interpret, so he takes in the other details instead. Darkness in the thin skin under his eyes, the blooming purple from his own fist, open lips that protects fangs shorter than he remembers. But the eyes. The green is a map of light and dark, a weave of bright and muted, and all of it works together to look into Castiel, to see _through_ him. As if he holds an answer of some kind. As if he carries something valuable.

When Dean begins to speak, his words come out fast, like he's trying to edge Castiel out of the conversation, to keep him from replying until his piece has been said.

"I know I can't be forgiven, Castiel. I know that what I did was terrible, and there is no going back from that. But until yesterday, until I—"

His words stiffen here, voice going lower, gruff with disgust for himself, "Until I drank your blood, I didn't know who I was. I couldn't remember. All I knew was hunger. Hunger for pain and despair, and you—"

Hands splayed, Dean's fingers curl, come in toward his own chest. He looks down at them, at the slight sharpness of the nails, and then back up at Castiel. "You were filled with both. And I couldn't help but want it all. I didn't know it would affect you. I didn't know it would start to change you."

"All these years, I've been here." Dean gazes at the stars now, eyes lifted to the uncaring heavens that stare back silently, unwilling to give the answers, the explanations he searches for. His voice is thicker now, hitches over words. "I forgot about them. I forgot about Grace and Elizabeth. I forgot why I hurt so badly, every day. Because I'd become a monster. Just like the men who took their lives."

Castiel feels the sting of fingers wrapping around his heart, sorrow for someone else besides himself. Concern. Caring. Things he cast off when Finn died, parts of himself that are awkward and stunted now. Of its own accord, seemingly, his hand slips between Dean's clasped fingers, holding both at the same time. Dean's head jerks down, surprise contorting his features, squeezing out the tears that had built in his eyes. They track down his face, hold on by their fingertips to his chin and then are cast away, landing on Castiel's hands.

"I miss them," he says, blinking again, wet lashes dark. "I miss them so much."

"I know," Castiel breathes, any animosity left for the creature, for Dean, deflating inside with a quiet sigh. "I know."

"Do you think I'm damned?" Dean asks. His voice is steady, but the twitch of his jaw, the down-pull of bitten lips shows the brewing storm beneath a calm surface.

"I think you were blind and numb with grief," Castiel says, looking into Dean's eyes, trying to show the truth of his words, surprised himself at the depth of the emotion bleeding through them, "And the creature who made you what you are took advantage. You couldn't have known what was going to happen."

"Just like you." And maybe Dean's going to say more, going to wring himself out until everything he touches is flooded with guilt, but Castiel chooses that moment to slot his lips over the other man's, to open his lips and carefully open them with the points of his teeth. Maybe Dean opens his mouth in shock, but he responds as he does, tracing Castiel's lip before inviting him in to taste.

The kiss doesn't consume him as their previous encounters had; this isn't a pull that drags his soul up by the edges, a fight that leaves his insides in tatters and consciousness on shaky ground. This is warmth, the golden set of the sun as it breathes a goodbye to one part of the swiftly turning planet, leaving a glow on the skin of the mere mortals below. They're vaulted into a shared space with an electricity that leaves both gasping at each other's breath, hands clutching at arms but even physical touch is somehow far away, muted beneath the _closeness_ of where they are. Boundaries have been left behind, windows opened and blinds drawn back to bare the souls of two creatures more alike than they know.

Castiel is wrapped in Dean, in the suffering he's had, the loss, but also the memories, like a thousand fractured pieces of glass, of the man he used to be. He's lost to a river of fierce love and loyalty, watches, agape, as images fly by. Dean, holding hands with a woman, lifting her white veil to lean in and brush his lips against hers, the sun shining between them, alighting upon long lashes that draw back up to reveal green eyes and the joy held by them. Dean, bouncing a swaddled infant up and down gently as his wife looks on, sweat on her brow, but peace in her eyes. Touches. Smiles. The easy contentedness of family and love. And then the rip of its loss, the creation of a hole that can never be filled and reaches greedy hands out to grow, grow, grow.

Castiel knows Dean must be seeing him, too, the life lived and the lives lost. Because though his heart beats and his lungs continue their forever in-out repeat pattern, he's not living. Hasn't for awhile, not when Finn is just out of reach; flitting through the back of his mind, caressing the tip of his tongue, keeping cold the ice in his heart.

Finn.

Caramel eyes, easy smile.

_Gone._

Fragile life slipped through fingers that clawed hard, clinging with screaming desperation, but couldn't hold on. Life is fragile. Life is the inevitability of death.

_Castiel,_ he hears, or feels, because it wells up in him like the burn of a shot without a chaser, pools in his throat, on his tongue and stays there, unwilling to give an inch. _Castiel. _Soft, now, light like flower petals on skin, floating weightless in the air. It beckons, asks to be joined, to add his voice and being to the hum already playing inside his mind, a tune that begs to be harmonized. But he remembers the last joy he felt. The distinct before and after of vulnerability, the precipice that love sets you on before sending hurricane winds your way.

_No. _

Red behind his eyes, red streams in his mouth where he bites down _hard, _scoring Dean's tongue and jolting them out of their false paradise.

"What's the matter, Dean?" He snarls, lips curling up over his teeth, showing them like a dog with hackles raised.

"Castiel," Dean spits blood between them, stains the sand but keeps going, ducking his head to look into Castiel's eyes. "I saw. I understand."

"What did you see, Dean?" He's smiling now, a shark's grimace that's comfortable to sink into as a warm bath. The anger feels good in his veins, the thrum a roar of a car engine as it winds. "You saw my dead lover?"

He rests his forehead against the other man's, lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

"You saw the death of my humanity, Dean. I've only just realized it."

"Awww, don't get upset," he continues, fingers on the other man's waist, scratching at the dried scales there. "Not over me, anyway. You're not looking too good right now."

Oh, how his words affect Dean. His poker face is good, but Castiel breathes in the wrenching feeling of a rug being slipped out from beneath feet, a bottom dropping out with no safety net. Dean's confusion is thick, his mind torn by the weight of new, familiar humanity, the grief he never dealt with and the promise, the idea of something good that slips away, mist on the breeze, before he can ever breathe it in. He doesn't expect Castiel to spring forward, isn't ready for the primal, savage rip of teeth into his shoulder, jolting his consciousness down to two white-hot points. It's why Castiel manages a few deep draughts before Dean scrambles back, braces his arms in the sand and pulls away with all his might, ripping open the muscle of his shoulder as he lands in the shallows of the lake.

His mouth is open, questions forming, even as he backs further into the water.

"Why?" It's chin is coated with Dean's blood, slick on lips that are licked slowly, sensually. "Because I give up, Dean. Because I don't care. Not anymore." And with that, It stands stiffly, turns on Its heel and walks away from the lake, into the shadows that cling to It like a second skin.

Dean can't breathe. He doesn't know how it worked before, how he could go underwater easily, could swallow the water down and use it like air without a second thought. The magic was strong and he was unaware, comatose in his own monstrous body. But now, he's fading, and a single dive starts to burn tired lungs, cracked and dry as fire kindling. He's dying.

And maybe he wouldn't feel so bad about that, would give in to the sweet release of his own last breath, but not at the expense of another. Not when he's done something so foul his stomach gnashes at his ribs, a constant ache of guilt in his chest so heavy he's not sure how he can still float. He's made a monster out of an innocent; taken grief and twisted it into the cold blade of revenge, of hatred. He's not that man.

He's not a man at all, anymore.

But he'll do what he can. What he has to. Because he can't die with this blood on his hands, can't try to wipe away the blame that's settled heavily on his shoulders, twisting at his neck, pressing his temples.

His arm throbs, though at least it's stopped bleeding. He can't use it to pull himself up onto the dock, so he drags himself to the other side of the beach instead, an area protected by tall, sharp grass that slices at his already tender tail.

His _tail._

He doesn't want to look at it, doesn't want to explore the mutation that's warped his mind and body, but curious fingers don't listen to a stern mind and so they reach down, sliding over the strangely rough surface. It's not supposed to feel like that, right? He remembers fishing as a child, shrieking in delight over catching his first fish, the alien animal wriggling in his hands after his father had taken the hook out. It had been slippery, a gloss of slick scales and powerful muscle.

He feels something give way, pull loose like hair from a head and knows, before he holds his hand up to the moonlight, what's happened, but he looks just the same. His hand is covered, dry, crumbling flakes of scales falling off even as he tries to examine them.

It's hard to choke back the scream that so desperately wants to reach into the night sky, that would shred his lungs if it could because the power of it is too strong, has been locked away in an unfeeling heart for too long and now threatens to pull him under before he can make things right.

Instead of screaming, he curls his shedding tail underneath himself and looks up into the endlessness of the night sky. The stars are cold, pinpricks of light that radiate beauty and warmth, but are really just as empty as he is.

It looks into the mirror, noting the sheen of Its eyes, the even pallor of skin that makes blue veins in his face stand out like kites in the sky. A glance down at Its wrists reveal an intricate pattern of scales emerging, some already breaking the skin, replacing the pale scheme of humanity with something more permanent, more durable. Stiff legs carried it back into the house, muscles not quite working as they should, but that sends a flame of pleasure through the lower part of his stomach, excitement and arousal hot underneath cool skin. The changes excite it, beckon it toward forever, and now it's ready to come willingly.


End file.
